Etsy tightens 3D printed products. This can affect you
It seems like everyone needs a side job these days. If your hobby helps you earn extra income, at least it seems like an easy thing to try. 3D printing, Laser engraving And with a vinyl cutter like the famous Cricut machine, you’ll be given the opportunity to make something beautiful, unique and available for sale. Etsy has been the storefront of choice for almost 20 years, and despite other options available, recently boasting 8.13 million active sellers in 2025. Contimod Report.
Recently, the company has clarified its policies surrounding the “created by sellers” category, particularly those related to “items generated using computer tools.” Updates are subtle, but they could fundamentally change the way many small businesses go.
Are these all the same dragons or are they different enough to be unique?
If you’ve searched for 3D printed dragons on Etsy, you’ve probably seen the screens like the ones mentioned above. Each dragon is very similar, but the painting appears to be painted little or none, but no two are exactly the same. Almost all of the dragons you think you’ll see are made by a small group of designers who license digital models to Etsy sellers. The latest update to Etsy’s company policy on computerized tools has removed the critical components that allow for this type of licensing, and many sellers are confused about their position.
Items created using computerized tools: physical items produced by sellers in their own shops or homes using computerized tools such as laser printers, 3D printers, CNCs, and Cricut machines. These items should be generated based on a Seller’s original design It is often personalized or customized to the buyer’s specifications.
An Etsy spokesperson told me that the above policy is always Etsy’s standard position on products made by sellers. The areas I highlighted are the edited sections. Originally, the Etsy guidelines included the phrase “…or use templated designs or patterns” that allowed the use of designs from 3D modelers. By removing this section and maintaining the part about the original design, it appears that each seller has to design the digital file themselves, print it, process it, and ship it.
Etsy says that this update in this policy is about clarifying its position rather than changing it. According to Creative GuidelinesUnqualified items are “commercial base items with only superficial changes, such as the addition of simple, mass-produced stick-on ornaments.” As many Etsy 3D print sellers create physical models using commercial licenses from 3D modelers as sources, the fixed points appear to be the “commercial” part.
3D printing business
3D modeler selling commercial licenses Patreon, thank youand Printed material Over the past few years, it has achieved great success and praise beyond the 3D printing space. As he is known, Christian, or craftykid3d Patreon and Social MediaCreate 3D models based on books and reading. This will help you keep your paperback open, such as a beautiful dragon bookend or a small book owner. His Patreon has a commercial license hierarchy where physical copies of his digital models can be sold online or at craft fairs and farmers’ markets. He currently has 860 Patreon subscribers, but his $10 per month subscribers make up a significant portion of his income.
Etsy’s updated policy is likely to significantly reduce the ability of Christian subscribers to use the models he releases on its platform, causing him and his subscribers to maintain themselves. Worse, the policy is ambiguous so Etsy sellers can find themselves violating by not knowing where the lines are drawn. Even Etsy’s own customer service seems confused, providing conflicting answers to questions asked by sellers.
Two different answers to the same question.
My colleague and fellow 3D printing enthusiast Russell Holly said ambiguity could be the point of phrasing. “I think the current guidance is intentionally vague about discouraging these mass production groups from making one small change and moving forward, but that reality is inevitable.” My question in answering this is where the line is to make small changes and who else will have an impact?
These two prints are clearly the same model, but we painted the model with slicing software, each using different coloured materials and different levels of effort. Digital files can be “painted” with software to assign different colors to specific areas of printing. My copy (left) is a fairly simple two-tone change that gives me a brown front of the house surrounded by green, while Russell (right) uses a variety of colors and took me a while to portray which area was which color. This is certainly a digital process, not a manual that weeds cricut vinyl, for example, to stick to Stanley’s tumblers, but it takes time and effort to materially change the appearance and feel of the material. The question is, what are the changes sufficient to make up the original work? This is up to Etsy to determine on a case-by-case basis, and in itself provides many issues.
Police a site as big as Etsy is extremely difficult and relies heavily on IP breach reported by its IP holders. This is not the same scenario where the creators of 3D models actively approve people who use them to make physical copies, so they don’t report their use to Etsy. This means that Etsy will need to spend resources on policing these models themselves. Etsy is said to have used reports from other sellers to defeat IP violations, among which Handbook It states, “…will not accept reports of infringement only from intellectual property owners or authorized agents of the owner.”
In conversations with me and other members of the Craftykid3D Patreon Community – I am a member and use his models to test the best 3D printers – Christian has expressed concern that Etsy will struggle to enforce this policy change. “Etsy has always been modest and poor. Companies like Universal, Sony and Disney contact Etsy to remove copyrighted products. He went on to say, “I doubt they can enforce this unless they have new technology…”
What does this policy mean to you as a seller?
The helmet on the left side may not be covered by Etsy’s policy, but the helmet on the right side is covered.
When selling 3D printed products using Etsy, you need to think about which products you will make and how much you will change them. One of the greatest benefits considerations is the time it takes to post-process a 3D printed model. The most profit comes from what you can sell with basic cleanups and what you can always sell. So, if you need to spend time and materials to make significant changes to your printing, your profit margins will decrease.
Holly agrees that “if you print a cosplay helmet designed by someone else, but do work like sanding or painting, it’s no longer the same as when you’re off the printer and not subject to this policy.” This use case is almost certainly permitted by Etsy, but he has no clear idea whether it’s true or not. In this photo you can see two Mandalorian helmets I printed. The one on the left is the original file with no other changes Printed on soft plastic So my daughter could wear it without fear of breaking it if she dropped it. It took a bit of time to remove support and clean it up, but since it’s another way to print helmets, I could have sold it for a good profit.
The one on the right took a lot of time. The steps I had to go through were:
- Remove 3D printed support
- Polish the entire helmet until smooth
- Filling the remaining layer lines from the first sanding
- Make everything even if smooth on a dry filler
- Spray play filler/primer over the helmet to create a uniform layer
- Spray black shiny undercoat on helmet
- Spray silver paint on the helmet
- Attach separate ear pieces
- Spray transparent gloss to protect silver paint
Now you can sell this second helmet on Etsy. I’m sure this policy will cover this kind of adjustment, and can even make a decent profit, but even if you can get more charges it will be much less profitable than you would get from your first helmet. However, I don’t think the first helmet is qualified as my original design.
If your business depends on other people’s files, it’s a clear dragon from the Dragon Cinderwing Or a corner craftykid3dperhaps they could sell it in other stores or physical locations, such as Facebook Marketplace or Amazon’s handmade websites. Otherwise, it may be worth diversifying where you sell. There are so many things we don’t know about how Etsy polices the revised policies, and it’s a good idea to have other revenue tools.
It will be interesting to see how far this change will go. Do Cricut Makers need to design their own decals instead of purchasing commercially available SVG? Should laser engraving makers do the same thing? The entire maker community uses these types of services, empowering the huge business sector to earn money by justifying hobby. According to Contimod34% of all Etsy sellers cite it as their sole source of income, so the potential loss is substantial. Etsy isn’t the only storefront out there, but it’s one of the biggest, and the decision here could have lasting impact in this sector.